It may easily be conceived that all the primary motions of a system so produced would be nearly circular, nearly in the plane of the original equator of the solar rotation, and in the direction of that rotation. Reasons are offered also to show that the motions of the satellites thus produced and the motions of rotation of the planets must be in the same direction. And thus it is held that the hypothesis accounts for the most remarkable circumstances in the structure of the solar system: namely, the motions of the planets in the same direction, and almost in the same plane; the motions of the satellites in the same direction as those of the planets; the motions of rotation of these different bodies still in the same direction as the other motions, and in planes not much different; the small eccentricity of the orbits of the planets, upon which condition, along with some of the preceding ones, the stability of the system depends; and the position of the source of light and heat in the centre of the system. It is not necessary for the purpose, nor suitable to the plan of the present treatise, to examine, on physical grounds, the probability of the above hypothesis. It is proposed by its author, with great diffidence, as a conjecture only. We might, therefore, very reasonably put off all discussion of the bearings of this opinion upon our views of the government of the world, till the opinion itself should have assumed a less indistinct and precarious form. It can be no charge against our doctrines, that there is a difficulty in reconciling with them arbitrary guesses and half-formed theories. We shall, however, make a few observations upon this _nebular hypothesis_, as it may be termed. 2. If we grant, for a moment, the hypothesis, it by no means proves that the solar system was formed without the intervention of intelligence and design. It only transfers our view of the skill exercised, and the means employed, to another part of the work. For, how came the sun and its atmosphere to have such materials, such motions, such a constitution, that these consequences followed from their primordial condition? How came the parent vapour thus to be capable of coherence, separation, contraction, solidification? How came the laws of its motion, attraction, repulsion, condensation, to be so fixed, as to lead to a beautiful and harmonious system in the end? How came it to be neither too fluid nor too tenacious, to contract neither too quickly nor too slowly, for the successive formation of the several planetary bodies? How came that substance, which at one time was a luminous vapour, to be at a subsequent period, solids and fluids of many various kinds? What but design and intelligence prepared and tempered this previously existing element, so that it should by its natural changes produce such an orderly system?